At a recent Build Your Marriage® conference we were asked, “What is the ONE THING you would advise couples to do to protect their marriage?” What would be your answer to that question? What do you do to protect your marriage? How would you rank the things you would do? What would be at the top of your list?
Brad & Heidi celebrating their 35th anniversary in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Most couples love to get away on a vacation with their children or just alone. The challenge, however, is the sheer expense of traveling. Vacations do cost money, but we have some simple ideas that you can put into practice that will help stretch your dollars and make your dreams a reality.
We love to travel. Together we’ve been to 38 countries. Heidi has been to all fifty states (Brad’s close). In fact, Heidi has almost 100,000 reads of her reviews on TripAdvisor, making her a senior advisor with them. We write this simply to lend some credibility to the suggestions we list below.
Recently we were speaking at a Build Your Marriage conference and an attendee engaged one of us in a conversation about why marriage mattered. “Isn’t marriage just a little piece of paper–an unnecessary formality?”
How do you and your spouse plan to grow together spiritually? For most couples, it is trying to get to church every week, or at least somewhat regularly. But just having a Sunday to Sunday plan isn’t enough for the most important aspect of your marital health.
Actively cultivating your spiritual growth as a couple throughout the week will draw you closer together relationally, bring deeper understanding, infuse your marriage with more grace, and increase your satisfaction at every level. Here are five spiritual practices you can bring into your marriage to grow together spiritually at home:
“Church is optional. If church fits in our schedule, if it’s convenient, and we feel like going—-we will try to get to church.” While couples may not actually say those words, their actions and choices reveal their values. This seems to be the growing belief held by couples and families today.
At almost every Build Your Marriage conference, parents of young children often ask, “We love our kids, but how do you find time in marriage for each other when raising little children?”
If you’ve ever been through the apartment hunting or house shopping process, you know what it’s like to walk into a place and just know it isn’t the right spot to call home. Our neighbors told us that they had walked through over fifty homes before they chose the one near us! Eventually you either settle for a place that has most of the things on your wish list, or you find the home that made you go, “Ahhhhhhh!” the first time you walked through it.
That’s not unlike like the search for the church you will both call home. We’ve known couples who have tried numerous churches before landing on the “Ahhhhhhh!” church. Others found their home church on the first visit.
So how does a couple find a church home together? Here are a few guiding suggestions:
In our marriage we continually have working “resolutions” on things we want to improve. In order to lead Build Your Marriage we are on a quest to build OUR marriage! 🙂 Pastor and author Bill Hybels says, every leader has a “holy discontent” with the status quo and we believe the same should be true for our marriages, too!
As you look toward 2018 here are five resolutions we believe every couple can make that will dramatically improve and build YOUR marriage:
